Nintendo’s expands its brave new digital world

The days of Satoru Iwata cowering behind the sofa at the mere mention of the internet are (mostly) behind us.

Nintendo has announced that New Super Mario Bros 2 will not be the only full game” download to be made available on the Nintendo eShop next week.

The publisher will also make existing 3DS release New Art Academy: Learn New Painting Techniques and Share Your Art and Freakyforms Deluxe Your Creations, Alive! available for download.

Each game will be identical to its retail release (sans cartridge, box and manual – obviously) and will also offer twice the number of Club Nintendo Stars (100 versus 50).

On the face of it, this development may seem like small fry. After all, Sony’s PSN is rammed with full game” downloads and Microsoft’s Xbox Games on Demand selection has grown significantly.

We will initiate the so-called digital download sales, or the digital distribution of packaged software, in addition to the sales of packaged software through the existing distribution channels,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told investors in April.

In principle, starting from this software, the company will offer the software titles that Nintendo itself publishes in both packaged and digital download formats so that our consumers can choose the way to purchase them.”

Nintendo’s slow acceptance of digital retail has been spurred by changing conditions at retail and the fact that consumers are showing an increasingly willingness to adopt new digital models.

Since the packaged and the digital download formats both have their own merits, we would like to offer both of these options to our consumers.”